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Agree with most of your points Dave.At the time though, there really WAs a 'press conspiracy', to turn the workers, against.... erm... the workers! And it was very successful. The unions were crushed.

The end result; last year, director's pay rose by 12%, on average, worker's pay, by just 1%. Inflation is currently about 3%.It's been like that since the 'banking crisis'/bankruptcy of the banks.

That's because *altogether now* "We're all in this together"....* (* It's just that some are more deeply "in it", than others. Terms and conditions apply)

I see that "minimum wage is going up, by 12p/hour, in October.2/3 of the people claiming benefits, are working.

The state pays them, because they can't survive on their wages, they mostly work for massively profitable, private companies. I'm fairly sure that the directors of those companies, won't be on minumum wage, they will instead, have a tax cut, because, apparently, the "very best people" need such incentives.

The unions have been defeated, now we have the state subsidising poverty wages, and private profits instead.I don't see that as progress, for anyone but the very smallest percentage of people, at the top of society.

I feel that since Thatcher, innequality and poverty and permanent unemployment have increased.I don't think our society is better with such polarisation.

Assuming that there is at least some correlation, between status, and intelligence, (well they at least get the best education, that money can buy) I would hope that the wealthiest realise this, and do something about it, voluntarily.Before it's too late.I think they've pushed the masses too far, this time.

Guess why my next and first new car after that was a BMW?

I used to go to Germany a bit, (late 80's/early90's ), and the odd thing was, the two blokes who worked at the company that I used to visit, were both keen car enthusiasts, one had been a former-pro, and they both 'marshaled' at rallies etc. Anyhoo, I was gobsmacked to discover that they (and presumably many other Germans too..?) had a very high opinion of Rover cars, regarding them to be "high-class, quality imports", (sound familiar..?) and they were quite disdainful about Merc, Audi, BMW etc.regarding them with the same contempt with which we viewed rover's products.In their opinion, merc's were "good taxis".Presumably, this had some bearing on their eventual decision to own the mini, which is still made here, on the former BL site, but now, made for BMW.My Dad's first car was a 1957 Morris Oxford.

You keep taking such a narrow view, to blame everything on Maggie as though nothing happened before or after her.

The greed of directors of public companies is breathtaking. The same excuse is used for MP's salaries - we need to pay the best to get the best. Cut their salaries in half and you would still have the same number of applicants.

No government has tackled this greed. Not one.

David Milliband bless his cotton socks has gone off to use his skills to help the world be a better place. The idea that a salary of £500,000 taken from a charity doesn't seem to have entered his socialist head as being not quite the form.

I'm only trying to get you to understand that they are pretty much all unthinking sleazebags.

Let's take another useless waste of molecules as an example. The greatest welsh socialist of all time, Lord Kinnock. (oh how I laugh when these guys Mandelson, Prescott and Kinnock insist on being called lord) never elected by the public, ends up in Europe presiding over a very corrupt regime, his Mrs and son in law end up in the same place, trousers an MP's pension, leader of the opposition pension, EU pension and House of Lords income. What has he ever added to the value of this country (for balance add Patten, Hong Kong, EU and Lords too for no discernible reason other than a political one to get him out of the way).

JV we are singing off the same hymn sheet here. But your ears are so fimly shut to reason.

I remember a few years ago the approbation re a CD/laptop??? being lost with the names and addresses of 20 million people who were receiving benefits. The newspapers and MPs were up in arms about this loss. I saw the real problem as being so many people receiving benefits.

Governments have succesively stepped in to try and make it easier for people to be in work, to support those "hard working families" (stuff us hard working singles).

The aim is just. The reality is that every action has an equal but unexpected reaction.

I did a stint as an HGV lorry driver about ten years ago. Seemed a good idea at the time. Rate of pay £8 per hour. If I was to go back the rate of pay is the same. Why? Because the number of foreign drivers (mainly Polish hereabouts) has increased hugely. These are young guys with families whose wages are topped up with benefits. A chap with children on benefits and a job in such circumstances has an effective hourly rate of pay closer to £15.

I did a stint on the binwagons. One of the loaders was in a panic becaue he had been told he had to work a Saturday to make up for the non-collections on a bank holiday. those extra few hours would see him losing a number of benefits including free dentistry as I remember. A huge disincentive to work.

Welshduck might be able to help with his experience here.

Every time the government steps in it skews the market. Oops - not a nice word. But that's the reality of the world we live in.

Take a very simple example. Housing. Argue all you like about the council house sell off but the effect on the housing stock totals was zilch, nothing, de nada, nowt.

The cost of renting though went up simply because the government has been prepared to step in and pay the market rental rate. Which is pure bollocks. Any company in the same powerful position would have been looking at negotiating huge discounts. And anyone with ahlf a brain would long ago have put a limit on the amount claimable. Why didn't the government make those simple steps?

The only mistake in the council house sell off was to not reinvest he proceeds in new housing stock. I can't remember why nor how that happened.

I'm only bothering with all of this JV because one day I will make you understand that the mass destruction of the Dinosaurs was not Maggies fault.

Surely that's because the poor sit their expecting money to fall in their hands and the rich are out there coming up with ideas to make money fall into their hands, really, as much as I hate what the conservatives stand for when you sit back and think about it you can't blame them. Ps. I'm being a bit general there, some poo families do try and deserve to do better than they are but some families or members thereof are lazy slackers who think the world owes them a favour, it doesn't, they need to get off their backsides and stop feeling sorry for themselves, get a job and work for their money instead of sitting there waiting for handout day to come then start whining on about how their dole money isn't as much as next doors polish family get for working their bollocks off. Do people think things have changed much since the Middle Ages in this country because they haven't, we all still belong to the lords of the land paying our tithes to them and basically, like it or not, being their ****es it's just that there are more smoke and mirrors now obscuring the true vision of reality (and too many whining pitch fork wielding hairy backed plebeians)

Repeating the same old guff ad infinitum is never going to persuade anyone.

id rather sit on my ass than go to work to get in debt

Says it all really. Despite the country going to financial hell in a handcart you think somehow the government is going to magic up more money to pay for that lifestyle choice.

Nick, don't let facts get in the way but here's the reality:

Data released by HM Revenue and Customs has shown the impact of the Coalition’s move to ease the tax burden on the lowest paid.The number of people liable for the 40 and 50 per cent tax rate has increased from 3.25 million in 2010-2011 to 4.13 million in the current financial year. The wealthiest one per cent of taxpayers, nearly 300,000 people who earn more than £150,000 a year, are shouldering 26.5 per cent of the income tax burden.The figures also show the very richest, the 4,000 people earning more than £2 million a year – representing just 0.01 per cent of taxpayers will pay 4.5 per cent of the country’s income tax.At the other end of the scale, the number of taxpayers is expected to fall] to just below 30 million as a result of the 1.4 million who will see their liability disappear because of higher personal allowances introduced by the Coalition.

And don't worry that the national debt is increasing by £120,000,000,000 every year. That's £4000 per taxpayer every year.

well apart from that Yorky did not add any rent allowance/other benefit which I guess he must get if he pays bedroom tax, His income and expenditure is very similar to my own but my income is approx. £1100 monthly and I do run a car.. It is ok saying get a better job, but how. Some people have limited abilities and job opportunities seem to be on less pay than my own.

Well listen sunshine, unlike you I don't get any benefits. As someone pointed out to pay bedroom tax you must be getting benefits ( a convenient fact glossed over).

I am single self employed and unemployable at my age. I work six days a week and have had only one weeks holiday in the last 8 years. My mortgage gets paid off when I'm 75. Unlike you when I get to 65 no-one is going to cover my rent/mortgage. Unlike you, if my business goes down the swanee there is no-one to pick up the pieces. BTW my mortgage is twice your rent. Heating, well guess the f@@@ what, I hardly ever switch it on.

None of your f@@@ing business but in the last 4 years my income has been between twenty and thirty thousand on which I pay tax.

Instead of just telling me I talk bollocks out of my arse, one hell of a party trick I must admit, tell me which fact I got wrong.

I'm not a conservative. If you actually bothered to read anything I've said I hold all politicians to account, think the bankers should be shot and am not at all happy with tax dodgers, tax havens, Philip Green etc.

Here's a thought for you (probably too much effort for you so just reply bollocks, oh sorry bolox), take a look at Greece. Think it can't happen here? Well, you just keep your head stuck firmly up your arse and smell the roses.

I feel a little confused now, so Yorks Nick has not disclosed his income/expenditure at all... even I could make something up, a woman this, a man that etc name names then as you are begining to sound like a used car salesman! Sorry nick, that just how I feel now..

It's actually about a dead woman, the thread that is. However, I do realise the figures add up but as the housing benefit was not factored in then you can surely see why the post was left open to criticism and suspicion. I agree the minimum wage should be increased etc. I won't be approaching your pals as of course that would be unfair to them on many levels.

Thatcher funeral costs .....£ 3.6million£2, 200,000 of that on police wages that would have been paid out that day.Thatcher family have promised to make a contribution to the costs. People are highly vexed over this.

Apparently, the "reception" costs alone, were £500,000.That's about the same as the price of two 'semi-detached' houses', where I live, for a fvckin drink. The last few funerals I've been to, (all much better people than Thatcher!!!) we all paid our own way, and very few of us were millionaires, like all her friends are.

Apparently she couldn't be cremated, as there wasn't enough coal left,sooo she's being buried with her old mate Jimmy, because they both shared a penchant for fvcking mine/ors.-Too soon...?

Apparently, Sir Mark referred to it as the "Wonga Funeral", and Carol said "Golly". (But I don't think she was looking directly at anyone, so keep calm!).

"Thatcher's Legacy"...?I expect Mark's already spent it.The real "legacy" is more of the same corruption, which made him an instant millionaire, when his mum used her corrupt influence, to get him to be the "broker", for some of her dodgy arms deals.She has ruined this country, because all she cared about was money, and greed.Her influence was a purely retrogressive one.The tories are now re-writing history, though they themselves shunned her, as an electoral liability. It's hilarious.

So Mrs T's not too popular round here. I recall the loony left begat the loony right. It was an accident waiting to happen. T was due to be booted out next term when the cuts in the South Atlantic gave Galtieri a false green light lots of guys were killed and T got another term for standing up to a dictator (which had to be done). If she'd have gone after one term I don't think the excesses would have happened, but it's all history now. Wonder what the next bubble is going to be?

If you want to register your objection to the funeral charges use this:-

LL - amongst the people you meet what is the real sentiment. I'm sure a lot of people dislike Westminster as we do south of the border but is the sentiment strong enough to separate. It hasn't previously.

I sometimes wish I was intellectual. Since 1982 I have thought men should moisturise, especially the back of their neck. We used to have a chap come in with the neck of a dried up river bed. Yet, I rarely do.

Billy is that No No No, she isn't dead, or No No No we can't move on, or No No No we shouldn't moisturise. I am sorry to say she IS dead. This is the naked truth. We CAN move on, and please please please every one moisturise your neck, especially the back of it. Sort of on topic, I drove past her dads old shop on wednesday. There is, and has been for some time now, a plaque. I cant read that fast whilst driving but can make out her name. Anyway it's some type of beauty parlour now with the words 'relax' emblazoned in the window. Just saying. . .

Usual duff statements from the main parties saying they will learn, fight harder and other such tosh.

Interesting comments from a couple of Conservative ex councillors

This Alexis McEvoy, defeated in the South Waterside ward of Hampshire County Council by a UKIP candidate, said: "There is a problem with the people at the top of our political parties. They just don't listen. They don't listen to ordinary people or our concerns.

"The European Union referendum is a good example. David Cameron says he'll have a referendum, but no-one believes a word he says. I don't believe a word he says, and I'm a lifelong Conservative."

Graham Marsh, who lost his Lincolnshire county council seat by 58 votes, urged his Conservative colleagues to eject Mr Cameron as party leader.

"David Cameron has had long enough," Mr Marsh said. "He needs to show firm leadership with the Lib Dems and go to the country if necessary."

Mo Mowlam. It's a while back but I emember that I didn't like her, didn't agree with her but had huge respect for her and her integrity. My pp memory is trying to drag out that I think she resigned from cabinet because he disagreed with Blair?

I just disagree with you. I found her remarkable in palpable and sustainable achievements andher character. You have posted before about how she denied her background. For me in thatassertion you couldn't be more wrong. She never shut up about her father, his shop, his civicwork and their Methodist background it informed her politics. How many biographies, friendor foe, have you read ? Do you like to read widely and have your understanding advanced. Or doyou like to have your existing prejudices or views confirmed each and every time by reading narrowly.

I've been listening to exerpts (sp?) from her authorised biography, on Radio 4. Interesting IMO was the early part. She was a terrible snob, and also did very little to promote other females. She basically 'saw' herself as a man.She wasn't a very affectionate or good/happy mother either, and preferred to concentrate on her "career", and leave the children with 'nannies'.Like most people (or tories, anyway ) of her age/time, she romanticised the past, and the days of empire.She was a firm believer in 'apartheid', describing Nelson Mandela (One of the finest men who ever lived, IMHO) as "a terrorist, basically, she believed that people should "know their place". (Except her!!.In her later years, her delusions of grandeur were epitomised in her "royal proclamation" of; "we have become a grandmother". She was a racist, misogynist, reactionary, 'classist' old bigot, without an ounce of compassion, or empathy in her living body. I could probably find more endearing qualities in any Mafia Don.HTH

No mention of the USSR role in ww2. Or, and it's not a popular thing to say, the opinion that warcould have been averted or at least the death of say fifty million lives mitigated. He was no greatstrategist. Beloved ? Good orator ? Certainly but perennially wrong. No more so when post worldwar 1 he took Britain back on to the gold standard at parity with the classic gold standard, directlycondemning Britain to the poverty of the 1920s. Mention of the general strike.should give you a reminder of those bleak times. Worse than the 1930s in my opinion and directlyattributable to Winston Churchill. Apropos, Churchill was born in Blenheim palace I think.

In summary, -Churchill was a bit of a cvnt.HTH.

It's the moral right of the poor to undercut the rich. That could be us.

I've asked you before what you mean by this...?It sounds a bit 'abstract' to be of any merit, but I await, with breath all bated.

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

Trite BS.The problem with 'capitalism', is that they really did run out of other people's money, their customers', and had to look to "socialist money", to keep their well-paid jobs, and 'bonuses'...It's funny how you "free market" types, don't quite know how to 'process' that one simple fact, yet...So instead, you trot out the "comical" clichés, regarding "the problem with socialism", and all of the comparisons with Stalin, and Mao, as though that somehow "proves" that it can't work. Meanwhile, you'll wave your own 'union flag', tug your forelocks, and pledge your loyalties, to the head of some tribal, feudal theocracy, ( basically a 'pyramid scheme' for the already wealthy) , and all based on some "purist-inspired", but genetically misplaced notions of 'tribal loyalty', and yet you'll simultaneously bleat-on about "freedom".... as though you've actually got some...I'll bet you like to think of yourself as a "free thinker" too, amirite..>?

You disappoint me Billy, you appear to have subscribed to some sort stereotype, and believe that somehow equates to something admirable, but instead, it's just tedious, and predictable.

You 'hate' socialism, and yet you've been happy to have benefited from a "socialist" state education, and a "socialist" state-funded National Health service, which, as you grow older, towards your state-funded, "socialist" pension, you will increasingly make use of. Your electricity came from a state-funded infrastructure, as did your water, and gas, and your sewage goes to state-built, "socialist" processing plants, and all of your goods were transported on state-built railways, and roads.You're only able to read this, because of the state-built, "socialist" telephone network.

Join the dots man!The wealth of the richest rose by 30% in 2010, during the depths of a "recession", when property prices fell, when share prices fell, when production and GDP FELL.There's no sign of any sort of "recession", at the top-end of the market, do some research, Mayfair property-prices, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Roll-Royce, Ferrari...Try to think it through...HTH

I've cut this article because it's far too long although there'sprobably only 2 maybe 3 people following this thread anymore, maybe I should have left it. I hesitate to step in myself knowingthat anything Ipost will be sliced, diced and quoted out of sequence. Still, her we go, this from someone how knows a damned site more than any of us

Margaret Thatcher played a pivotal role in the ending of apartheid in spite of herself. She famously declared the African National Congress to be a "terrorist" organisation, but she gave these "terrorists" diplomatic protection. In the mid 1980s the South African government blew up the ANC offices in London and tried to kidnap its members in London, including Thabo Mbeki and Oliver Tambo. She was obliged to provide armed bodyguards for their most senior officials.

A close aide once told me that she opposed apartheid more on the grounds that it was a sin against economic liberalism rather than a crime against humanity. She also was bitterly against sanctions of any sort (edit).............Advised by her husband, Dennis, who had business interests in South Africa, she felt that anything that damaged wealth creation must be bad for South Africa. She was also a great admirer of Laurens van der Post, the South African writer and traveller later exposed as a fraud, who also opposed sanctions on the country. He introduced her to Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu leader, who played an ambivalent role in the struggle against apartheid, splitting from the ANC in 1979 and accepting "homeland" status for Kwazulu. His movement, Inkatha, helped the South African police repress ANC rebellion in the townships.

But in spite of her instincts, Thatcher played a pivotal role in southern Africa. As Britain's new prime minister in 1979 she was persuaded by Commonwealth leaders at their meeting in Lusaka, where she famously danced with President Kenneth Kaunda, to try to end the war in Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe. That led to the Lancaster House conference and an election in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe which was won overwhelmingly by someone she despised – Robert Mugabe.

From that she was persuaded to try to deal with apartheid in South Africa. She began by making two trips to other countries in Africa. In 1988 I followed her to Kenya where she was greeted by the president, Daniel arap Moi, and to Nigeria where she was welcomed by the military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, to whom she sold tanks.

The following year she visited Mugabe in Zimbabwe, where British troops were training Mozambicans to fight off the South African-backed Renamo movement.

A few years later, a call came through to Downing Street on a Sunday afternoon from a public phone. It was Mugabe. He had come to London privately with his then wife, Sally, who needed regular dialysis for diabetes. He asked if he could come to visit Thatcher. She agreed and on a Sunday evening at Downing Street the two sat and talked informally about the world and life like old friends – she sipping whisky and he water. It was not the only time that happened.

I was briefed off-the-record by her foreign affairs adviser on several occasions, but when he told me that she had called on the then president, PW Botha, to release Nelson Mandela, I found it difficult to believe. I did not report it as I could not source it. But it was true. In a letter to Botha in October 1985 she wrote: "I continue to believe, as I have said to you before, that the release of Nelson Mandela would have more impact than almost any single action you could undertake."

When Botha stepped down after a stroke in 1989, he was replaced by FW de Klerk, who met Thatcher at Downing Street in June. I was among a group of journalists waiting outside No 10 with the promise that he would give a press conference straight after. We watched him leave then ran up Whitehall to the South African embassy where he had promised to speak. He did not turn up. We were told later that he had been too shocked by Thatcher's vehemence.

Mandela was released on 11 February 1990. That evening he made a speech from the balcony of the town hall in Cape Town which was televised, live, world wide. The speech was written by the hard-liners and communists in the ANC and was full of Marxist jargon. "Our resort to the armed struggle in 1960… was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue." Thatcher was appalled. She picked up the telephone to Robin Renwick, the British ambassador in South Africa, and demanded to know why she had ever bothered to battle for Mandela's release if this was the result.

But Mandela felt that at this stage he had to submit himself to party discipline. That was the reason that among the first people he visited after his release was Muammar Gaddafi. And when he came to London, the ANC central committee insisted – against his wishes – that he did not meet Thatcher. After he did finally meet her later that year he thanked her for helping to end apartheid and announced this at a press conference soon after. Senior ANC officials spluttered with rage.

Richard Dowden is the director of the Royal African Society and author of Africa; altered states, ordinary miracles

She turned the UK/Britain into a police state...she was a total b1tch and probably thought well of because of her cruel disposition - congratulations to her for spurring on dissent and dissatisfaction and laughing in the face of the electorate...what a fvcking cvnt she was...

quotes from Bobby Sands

am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.

“Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically."

.....anyway..you get the gist...she was clearly the inspiration for Angela wotsherface Merkel and a nazi whom Hitler would have been inordinately proud of..she was the personification of evil...bad cess to the horrible b1tch!